This whole process is of course nonsense, born out of a desire to "harmonise" everything, which in turn comes from the continental habbit of being unable to trust anyone else to get things right, in this case the individual countries of europe, without pages of regulation. They are re-inventing the wheel, as of course we have already a perfectly good set of international standards, called ICAO. JAA added little to what ICAO offered and EASA will be similar. As each country already allows holders of ICAO licences to fly the aircraft from that country in another's airspace the EASA licensing will add little beyond allowing the national of one country to fly another country's aircraft in that airspace.
As all countries of the EU should be assumed to be able to train their nationals in accordance with ICAO there is absolutely no benefit to the ICAO process which cannot be addressed by simply ensuring mutual recognition of national ICAO standard licensing within the EU. Anything sub ICAO can be left to the discretion of the country concerned (wasn't that what we had about a thousand years ago, until JAA came along!).
There we are, problem solved. I can't see what the fuss was about
Sooner or later this country has to say enough is enough (I happen to notice the other day a quote from the EU that the cost benefit of the single market to business in the EU is about £160 billion; the cost of compliance with the rules is £600 billion
).